True Colours

Interior designer Suzy Hoodless’ imaginative use of colour has transformed her terrace home from bleak to chic

- Fiona McCarthy

‘Even on a bright, sunny day, the rooms can be quite dark, so it really needed colour,’ says interior designer Suzy Hoodless of the alluring hues in the home she shares with her husband Erskine Berry and their three children, Misty, eight, Myla, seven, and Arki, five. Cobalt blue and dramatic red chime with dusky pink and pale grey to punctuate the interior of their ‘tall, thin’ terrace house in west London.

‘Maybe it’s because of the kids, or maybe it’s just that I’m attracted to bright colours,’ Suzy muses. It’s certainly become a part of her signature style, self-described as ‘unique, confident and characterful’, which she has applied to collaborations with the likes of Osborne & Little and The Rug Company, interiors for Scottish lodges and Barbadian beach houses, and the newest Mayfair outpost of the women-only members’ club AllBright.

Her home has become ‘a sort of big laboratory; all the biggest mistakes I’ve made have been for myself,’ says Suzy, laughing. ‘For a client, I’d have come up with the most precise plan and installed everything in days.’ Here, it’s taken seven years. ‘We’ve renovated it completely the wrong way – we started with the top-floor bathroom and then worked downwards, room by room.’ She sighs.